


Rescue

by GoodJanet



Category: Gone With the Wind - All Media Types, Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Multi, Prisoner of War, Rescue Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 23:38:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7551598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoodJanet/pseuds/GoodJanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhett makes it his mission to save Ashley from Rock Island. Ashley, he finds, has not been faring well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rescue

It’s late, and it’s dark, and it’s foolish that he’s come here. Rhett knows it, and still he creeps into the prisoner’s camp, lantern low and flickering. Some brave men come up the bars to see who has come to see them in the middle of the night. They are tired, ragged, sick, worn, beaten men, but they are kind enough to point him the right direction. Rhett stops in front of a cell and lets his light shine in. It was him alright.

“Does your wife know you’re here, Captain?” Rhett asks from the other side of the prison’s bars.

Ashley hunches against the back wall, half-asleep, just he's instantly awake at the sound of a familiar voice. He lifts his face and sits up a little straighter. He squints into the light and stands on weakened legs and walks towards Rhett.

“Does yours?” Ashley asks, sounding skeptical.

Rhett gives a soft laugh. He was glad to see Ashely hadn’t lost himself to shell shock and imprisonment. Contrary to popular belief, he _liked_ Ashley. The man had his flaws, but despite stringing his Scarlett along for nearly two decades, he felt Ashely was a good man. After all, if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be here to save him.

“How would you like to go home to Melly, Ashley?”

Something sparks in his eyes when he says her name. His hands tighten on the bars as though he were about to wrench them apart with his bare hands.

“Anything,” he says. “I’d do anything. Anything to hold my darling wife in my arms. I’d never leave her again.”

Rhett looks down. Ashley’s hands had reached for something more forgiving than cold steel and had found Rhett’s lapels a suitable replacement. Like all the others, this was a man who was desperate, sick, homesick. Rhett smiles indulgently. He lets Ashely hold on to him and runs a large, gentle hand through the man’s filthy hair.

“I’d do anything, Captain Butler,” Ashley softly repeats. “Anything.”

There’s something in his tone that worries Rhett. Something that tells him Ashley has made this plea before, but with much less success. Rhett pulls back, and Ashely looks mournfully at him, hands dropping back down to the bars.

“I know it’s not gentlemanly to ask, but it’s long been established that I’m no gentleman, so I’m going to ask you anyway. What’s happened to you here?”

“I’m sure it’s nothing compared to what the women are suffering through at Tara.”

Evasive, which doesn’t surprise Rhett. He’s heard tales of hideous power plays happening on both sides of the War. Rhett pictures a fresher-faced Ashley in his smart uniform with the captain's bars on each shoulder being forcibly taken back to Rock Island, where the men were no gentlemen and wanted nothing more than an opportunity to prove it.

Rhett pulls a key out his coat pocket and the door swings open. Anyone could be bought. Even the warden of a Northern jail. His blockmates run to their doors at the sound of mental on metal. Ashley steps forward and glances side to side before stepping all the way out. He breathes a deep sigh when he does, and already he looks more like Ashley Wilkes the man rather than Ashely Wilkes the prisoner.

“All I’m asking you to do is trust me, Ashley. Can you do that?”

“Yes, Rhett. I am forever indebted to you.”

Ashley sticks out his hand to shake and Rhett does.

“Alright, the first thing you can do is _run_.”

Rhett huffs out the lantern, grabs Ashely’s hand, and bolts for the direction of his horse. The two ride bareback out of the prison and are long gone by the time the sounds of gunshots reach their ears. They break for sleep in the woods just as the sky began turning a bluish-grey.

“We’ll get you home, Ashley,” Rhett promises. “One way or another, I’ll make sure you’re home to Melly.”

Ashely pulls the blanket Rhett lent him over his shoulders.

“And Scarlett.”

Oh, that son of a bitch.”

“And Scarlett,” he agrees.


End file.
